Andrew Amstutz AIPS Final Report December 31, 2013 Finding a Home for Urdu: The Anjuman-i Taraqqi-yi Urdu, 1903-1971 Introduction: ‘Our Muhajir Anjuman’1: In Karachi in 1953 the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-yi Urdu (Association for the Advancement for Urdu) held its golden jubilee. The Anjuman-i Taraqqi-yi Urdu (henceforth, the Anjuman) is the largest Urdu scholarly promotional association in South Asia. Originally founded in 1903 as part of the All-India Muslim Educational Conference associated with Aligarh University to counter Hindi advocates in North India, the Anjuman first shifted from Aligarh to Aurangabad (Deccan) under the patronage of the Hyderabad princely state in 1913, then to Delhi in 1938, and finally to Karachi in 1949 following the Partition of British India. Looking back on the fifty-year history of the Anjuman in 1953, the prominent historian Syed Hashmi Faridabadi placed the shift of “our muhajir Anjuman” from Delhi to Karachi in a longer history of Urdu migrations. He employed the term muhajir (immigrant), which is used for Indian Muslims who migrated to Pakistan, to describe the Anjuman. It is in turn a religiously significant term for those who moved with the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. Hashmi went on to note that in terms of this migration to Karachi in 1947, “this was really a type of beginning such as what happened during the era when [the Anjuman] was shifted from Aligarh to Aurangabad [in 1913].”2 On the face of it, there seems to be little in common between the bureaucratic shift in 1913 of the Anjuman’s headquarters to Aurangabad, which was then a provincial outpost of the Hyderabad State, and the massive migration of Urdu-speaking Muslims in 1947 to Karachi, the first capitol of Pakistan, amidst the violence of Partition. However, my research on the AIPS fellowship suggests that the migration of scholars associated with the Anjuman to Karachi after 1947 can be productively analyzed in relation to a longer history of migrations of North Indian Urdu-speaking professionals in search of employment and government service as well as in terms of the violent rupture of Partition. Scholars have discussed the tensions arising from the establishment of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan since Urdu was not the regional language of any province in the new nation-state.3 I propose that this language policy can be fruitfully understood within a longer history of efforts to gain government sponsorship of Urdu as a language of administration and science outside of North India by migrating Urdu-speaking scholars and civil servants. The effort of the Anjuman to promote Aurangabad as a new center for Urdu from 1913 to 1938, which was a part of larger migrations of North Indian civil servants to the Hyderabad State, provides a useful comparison to the Anjuman’s advancement of Karachi as a new national capitol for Urdu. Maulvi Abdul Haq, a major Urdu lexicographer and historian often called the “Father of Urdu,” was the Anjuman’s leader from 1913 to 1961. The shifts of the Anjuman from North India to the Hyderabad State and later to Karachi provides an effective institutional lens on the broader efforts to find a new ‘homeland’ for Urdu outside of North India and on the wider migrations of many Urdu-speakers as professional opportunities for middle- class Muslims decreased in North India. (While I am following the specific lineage of North Indian Muslim professionals who migrated, most remained in North India.) 1 “Hamari muhajir Anjuman…”: Syed Hashmi Faridabadi, Panja Saale Tarikh-i Anjuman-i Taraqqi-yi Urdu, Karachi: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Pakistan), 1987, 254. 2 Faridabadi, Panja Saale Tarikh Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu, 230. 3 Alyssa Ayres, Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 1 Andrew Amstutz AIPS Final Report December 31, 2013 Below, I will first elaborate on the parallels between the Anjuman’s activities in the early 20th-century Deccan and in post-colonial Pakistan. Then, I will discuss the Anjuman’s efforts to promote Urdu in Aurangabad and Karachi by refashioning Urdu as a language of science and by drawing on the history of Indo-Persian. First, I will examine the Anjuman’s efforts to advance Urdu as a trans-regional language of modern science education and research. While Urdu is historically associated with poetic composition and royal courts, I argue that the Anjuman’s Urdu science project was motivated by the educational and commercial needs of immigrant Urdu- speaking professionals in the Deccan and Karachi. Finally, I will explore how the Anjuman’s scholars drew on the history of Indo-Persian in early modern South Asia to make new territorial and political claims for Urdu. I theorize that the Anjuman invoked the history of Indo-Persian to claim that Urdu was the alleged successor to early modern Persian as “a universal language (“ek alamgir zaban”) which could unify a wider South Asian political formation on the model of Persian as the language of administration and education in the Mughal Empire and its successor states.4 Despite the seeming contradiction of drawing on Persian for its nationalist Urdu projects, the Anjuman’s imagining of a future for Urdu through Indo-Persian’s past make sense in terms of Persian’s status as a pre-colonial Islamicate prestige language across South Asia and the history of migrations of Persian-using scribes and poets for government service. When the Anjuman was based in Aurangabad from 1913 to 1938 and subsequently when the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Pakistan) was based in Karachi from 1947, Abdul Haq pursued similar policies to make these two unlikely cities centers for Urdu. In both cities, he relied on the migration of Urdu-speaking professionals to build a scholarly network and audience. He simultaneously appealed to regional elites by publishing on Marathi and Sindhi literature, respectively. He also drew on the history of Persian as a language of government and trans- regional connection in the early modern Deccan and Sindh to promote Urdu in both regions. Many North Indian civil servants moved to the Hyderabad State in the early 20th century in search of professional opportunities since Urdu was the language of administration there.5 They were referred to as ghair mulki (foreigner) in Hyderabad. Abdul Haq, who worked in the translation and education departments of the Hyderabad State, drew on his professional connections to ghair mulki civil servants for the Anjuman’s publishing projects. Not only did many ghair mulki scholars write for “Urdu,” the Anjuman’s literary journal, but the organization celebrated the accomplishments of ghair mulki civil servants, such as a series of articles in “Urdu” honoring Nawab Imad Al-Mulk Bahudur who was an Urdu educationist from Lucknow who became a leading official in Hyderabad and a supporter of the Anjuman.6 Conjoined with efforts to appeal to immigrant North Indians, Abdul Haq engaged regional Marathi literati. In the 1920s “Urdu” ran a series of articles discussing Marathi drama, poetry, and biographical genres.7 In 1933 he published “The Influence of Persian on the Marathi Language (Marathi Zaban par Farsi ka Asr),” which suggests that Urdu could serve as a language of trans-regional connection for Marathi-speakers, on the model of early modern Indo-Persian.8 4 “Hamari Zaban” 14 August 1939, New Delhi: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu. 5 Kavita Datla, The Language of Secular Islam: Urdu Nationalism and Colonial India, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013. 6 “Urdu” October 1925, “Urdu” January 1926, & “Urdu” January 1929. 7 “Urdu” January 1926 & “Urdu” April 1927 & “Urdu” July 1928. 8 Maulvi Abdul Haq, Marathi Zaban par Farsi ka Asr, Aurangabad: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Aurangabad), 1933. 2 Andrew Amstutz AIPS Final Report December 31, 2013 While based in the Deccan from 1913 to 1938, Maulvi Abdul Haq focused on recovering the textual and architectural heritage of the Mughal Emperor Auranzeb’s rule in Aurangabad. During his military campaigns in the Deccan in the 17th century, Aurangzeb established his court in Aurangabad and many Persian-using scribes, poets, and warriors moved to Aurangabad with Aurangazeb. Abdul Haq established the Anjuman’s headquarters next to Bibi ka maqbera (shrine of Aurangzeb’s consort modeled on the Taj Mahal). Restoring the shrine, Abdul Haq promoted the area as Urdu bagh (‘Garden of Urdu’) and established a museum for Bibi ka maqbera.9 Abdul Haq collected Persian manuscripts dealing with historical developments and literary and scribal skills in the age of Aurangzeb and letters composed at Aurangzeb’s court discussing scholars and science in Aurangabad, particularly astronomy.10 Soon after the famous historian Jadunath Sarkar was publishing his critical histories of Aurangzeb, Maulvi Abdul Haq creatively drew on the history of Aurangzeb’s rule in Aurangabad and the waves of Persian-literate scribes and warriors who migrated to the early modern Deccan to make the case for an Urdu homeland in the Deccan centered in Aurangabad.11 Paralleling his efforts to draw both recently arrived North Indian scholars and local literati into the Anjuman, Abdul Haq pursued similar policies in Karachi. While Karachi became the headquarters of the Pakistani branch of the Anjuman in 1947, there was an active regional wing in Karachi from the 1920s. Sindhi scholars associated with the Anjuman’s regional branch attempted to promote Karachi as a new center for Urdu within British India by drawing on the city’s Indian Ocean commercial networks. Just as the Anjuman relied on ghair-mulki professionals in Aurangabad, the Anjuman eventually became a center of muhajir scholars in Karachi. However, Abdul Haq heavily relied on Sindhi scholars, particularly Mahmooda Rizviya and Pir Hassam Aldin Rashidi, in establishing the new Pakistani headquarters in 1947 Karachi.12 Mahmooda Rizviya was an Urdu short-story writer who was the editor of “Hindustani,” the Urdu magazine published by the Anjuman’s Karachi branch in the early 1940s.